Rotation-rate sensors are employed nowadays in a large number of applications. For example, rotation-rate sensors can be employed in vehicles in order to capture the current motion of the vehicle. These data are needed, in order, for example, to be able to make an electronic stability program available in vehicles.
But rotation-rate sensors may, for example, also be employed in mobile communication devices—such as smartphones, for example—in order to capture a motion of the smartphone. This makes it possible to capture, for example, inputs to an application of the smartphone by virtue of the motion of the smartphone. For example, a map view of a street map can be moved in accordance with the motion of the smartphone.
In this connection, rotation-rate sensors may have been constructed as microelectromechanical systems, for example. Ordinarily such microelectromechanical systems consist of mass systems oscillating in antiparallel manner. By virtue of the Coriolis force, a deflection perpendicular to the propelling motion is generated which can be measured by means of suitable evaluation circuits.
Alternatively, concepts operating on the basis of a rotatory principle may also be employed, in which a mass is set in rotation or caused to execute a rotational oscillation, and a rate of rotation about the X-axis or Y-axis as a result of a tilting out of this plane is measured.
DE 10 2006/052 522 A1 presents such a rotation-rate sensor which is able to capture rates of rotation about two mutually perpendicular axes. If a structure for the capture of the rate of rotation about a third axis, for example the Z-axis, is to be integrated within such a sensor, a structure outside the rotor is ordinarily used for this purpose. If this structure were integrated on the rotor, this would have the consequence that the centrifugal force would overlay the Coriolis force and would render an evaluation of the signal difficult.